firehose

Girls' toy company GoldieBlox has removed a parody of the Beastie Boys song "Girls" after complaints from the band. Roughly a week ago, the company posted a YouTube promotion with a re-recorded, rewritten version of the song sung by a trio of girls as they set a complex Rube Goldberg machine into motion. But the band itself soon reached out to GoldieBlox, saying that the song was an infringement of their copyright, and GoldieBlox preemptively asked a court do declare it legal fair use. What happened next was a public relations firefight from which neither side escaped entirely unscathed, but a few days later, the case seems to have blown over: GoldieBlox has removed the song and said it will drop its court case at the behest of the Beastie Boys.

"We want to be good role models. And we want to be your friends."

In the wake of the original filing, the Beastie Boys published an angry open letter, praising the parody but saying that an ad was still an ad, even if it carried a positive message; late Beastie Boy Adam Yauch's will specifies that his work shouldn't be licensed for commercial use. GoldieBlox, meanwhile, said that it didn't need a license: its video fell under the same fair use exceptions that any parody can be granted. The many copyright analyses done in the following days weren't in total agreement about whether the company could win a suit, but few ruled it out; previous courts have found that it's potentially legal to sell a parody song and to use another copyrighted work as the basis of an advertisement. But the prospect of a court battle between a girl-friendly toymaker and a much-loved group following the directions of their former bandmate wasn't an appealing prospect for fans on either side.

Today, though, GoldieBlox removed its video and replaced it with another using the same footage but a different, instrumental song. It also issued an open letter on its blog:

Dear Adam and Mike,

We don't want to fight with you. We love you and we are actually huge fans.

When we made our parody version of your song, "Girls", we did it with the best of intentions. We wanted to take a song we weren't too proud of, and transform it into a powerful anthem for girls. Over the past week, parents have sent us pictures and videos of their kids singing the new lyrics with pride, building their own Rube Goldberg machines in their living rooms and declaring an interest in engineering. It's been incredible to watch.

Our hearts sank last week when your lawyers called us with threats that we took very seriously. As a small company, we had no choice but to stand up for ourselves. We did so sincerely hoping we could come to a peaceful settlement with you.

We want you to know that when we posted the video, we were completely unaware that the late, great Adam Yauch had requested in his will that the Beastie Boys songs never be used in advertising. Although we believe our parody video falls under fair use, we would like to respect his wishes and yours.

Since actions speak louder than words, we have already removed the song from our video. In addition, we are ready to stop the lawsuit as long as this means we will no longer be under threat from your legal team.

We don't want to spend our time fighting legal battles. We want to inspire the next generation. We want to be good role models. And we want to be your friends.

While a fair use parody doesn't need to have the permission or blessing of the original work's creators, the Beastie Boys previously said that GoldieBlox hadn't contacted them prior to the release of the video. Likewise, it still hasn't been established what actions the Beastie Boys' lawyer planned to take; the band characterized it as an inquiry, but the court documents state that the lawyer "threatened [GoldieBlox] with copyright infringement" and called the song a "big problem." The Beastie Boys' publicity manager did not immediately return a request for comment, but with the video off YouTube and the court case apparently withdrawn, it's hard to imagine the controversy isn't pretty much over.

American Airlines and US Airways will combine early next month and create the world's largest airline. A New York judge today approved the settlement reached earlier this month between the Justice Department and both airlines, allowing American to emerge from bankruptcy to complete the merger. AMR Corporation, parent of American Airlines, says the deal will be finalized on December 9th. The DOJ had initially (and aggressively) tried to prevent the two popular US airlines from becoming one, arguing that the move would hike airfare for all travelers and harm competition within the industry.

But as the antitrust battle waged on, the Justice Department grew less combative, agreeing to allow the merger if American and US Airways would give up dozens of takeoff and landing slots at numerous major airports across the US. As part of his ruling today, Judge Sean Lane also denied a separate attempt to delay the merger by a group of consumers that have privately sued the airlines with similar antitrust charges. Under terms of the deal, AMR Corporation will be renamed American Airlines Group. The combined airline will be larger than either United or Delta, making it the industry's biggest. American didn't bother waiting for the judge's ruling to begin celebrating; the company yesterday uploaded a YouTube video saying the combined airline had been "cleared for takeoff."

Mavericks introduces some new features, but new bugs and annoyances come along for the ride.

Apple

Brand-new software is rarely perfect, and the latest version of OS X is no exception. While Mavericks ushers in a number of desirable features and improvements to the operating system, those features don't always work exactly as advertised. Now that the software has been out for about a month, we thought we'd round up our most pressing gripes, in part to bring them to your attention and also because complaining can be pretty cathartic.

Not-so-smooth scrolling

When Mavericks' new responsive scrolling feature is working as designed, it draws sections of your window that aren't yet on-screen so that they show up more quickly when you scroll down (or up). In apps that have implemented the feature (Tweetbot for Mac is one), scrolling is, in fact, pretty smooth. Unfortunately, the feature seems to have broken scrolling for other programs.

I notice the problem most often in Chrome, Outlook 2011, and the Limechat IRC client—those are the three applications I spend the biggest part of my day in, though they should be representative of many other third-party applications. Gentle scrolling through pages or through my inbox is fine, but scrolling at higher speed becomes quite jerky and inconsistent. This is behavior I never noticed in Mountain Lion on the same computer (which is a 27-inch 2012 iMac with a dedicated GeForce GTX 680MX GPU and 2GB of video RAM—specs definitely aren't the problem). Tweetbot did the same thing before its recent update to version 1.4, so hopefully other developers will get their applications updated soon.

A graphical representation of the K2 mission. I'd recommend reading below before trying to interpret this image.

NASA

Back in August, NASA formally threw in the towel on attempts to get its Kepler planet-hunting probe working again. With the probe down to just two fine-pointing devices, there was just no way to keep the telescope consistently pointed at the right field of stars. Apart from the pointing issue, however, the remaining hardware was all fine, so NASA said it would consider proposals for alternate uses of the probe. Now, the agency has announced that it has settled on one proposal and will consider putting it into its 2014 budget.

The failed hardware is called a reaction wheel, and its job is to exert a small force that can turn the telescope over time. At least three of these wheels are required to keep the telescope staring at a specific spot long enough to gather useful data. The new proposal would effectively turn the probe's solar panels into a third reaction wheel—though an extremely limited one.

As photons are absorbed and emitted, they generate a small force on the object doing the absorbing (it's the same force that causes some asteroids to spin). Kepler is powered by solar panels that are arranged symmetrically across the probe's long axis. If the probe can be oriented so that the sunlight strikes these panels evenly, the photons will exert a constant and symmetric force against the probe. Kepler's two remaining reaction wheels can then push against that force and keep the telescope gazing steadily at one point in the sky, just as it was designed to do.

A judge has ordered that Sriracha cease operations that are causing powerful odors at its factory in Irwindale, CA after nearby residents complained of headaches, breathing problems, and burning sensations.

Judge Robert H. O'Brien acknowledges that there was a "lack of credible evidence" that the spicy Sriracha stench is causing physical symptoms, but calls the fiery fumes a "public nuisance." The aroma is "extremely annoying, irritating and offensive to the senses," he writes.

The aroma is "extremely annoying."

Fans of the red rooster sauce will be relieved that Huy Fong Foods, the maker of Sriracha, was not ordered to cease operations altogether — although the penalty could still cause the price to go up for the first time ever.

The company, which has tried installing filters to mitigate the peppery stink, did not comment on the ruling.

They're supposed to be the most sterile spots on Earth: space agency "clean rooms," where engineers prepare vessels for launch, are rigorously washed, scrubbed, and heated to eradicate microbes. So ESA scientists were surprised when, in 2009, they discovered within a clean room an unusual bacteria only seen once before — two years earlier and 2,500 miles away inside a NASA clean room at the Kennedy Space Center.

That bacterium has now been analyzed, according to a piece in Scientific American, and appears to be so unusual that it constitutes an entirely new genus. It's never been detected outside of clean rooms, suggesting that the bacterium is uniquely suited to areas with little competition, and robust enough to flourish in inhospitable conditions. Named T. phoenicis, the hardy bug is now being evaluated for its potential to travel from Earth to Mars, and survive on the Red Planet once it arrives.

The virtual currency Bitcoin, a decentralized form of money that approximates cash on the internet, has never been worth more. The price of a single bitcoin has soared above $1,000 on Mt. Gox, one of the main exchanges where the currency is bought and sold. As of this writing, the price is $1,020 on Mt. Gox but is averaging closer to $945 on other exchanges. This means the total market is worth around $11.4 billion.

Bitcoin has seen several massive price hikes before which were all followed by crashes to varying degrees, but this is the most extreme yet. The valuation comes as several major events have boosted confidence in Bitcoin's viability as a universal currency. Those include the closure of Silk Road, the illegal drug bazaar that initially gave the currency a bad name; the currency's first Congressional hearing; and its rising popularity in China.

The market price of Bitcoin over the last 60 days. Source: Blockchain.info

The currency has also attracted investors from Silicon Valley and elsewhere, who are putting real-world money into Bitcoin-related startups in addition to buying it up themselves.

Several major events have boosted confidence in Bitcoin

The price was around $200 on October 27, meaning the currency has increased almost five times in value in just one month. Sound like a bubble inflated by greedy speculators? It probably is. But that doesn't mean the four-year-old experimental currency won't be around for a long time.

Submitted by: anselmbe